How to find someone also when it seems impossible...

Imagine you are in a very busy place such as a concert, a demonstration in a
square or at the Oktoberfest. How to find a friend that you lost sight of?
How to revert back to the same place after going to the bathroom?

A common GPS navigation tool is designed to find fixed locations, with certain recognizable
landmarks (streets and squares), but fails miserably when it comes to locate
a person who is in a large open space such as a beach.

The classic navigation applications are also unable to head to a destination
that is moving on its own, such as a friend who is moving.

To solve all these problems is born GPS, find me!, which,
in addition to maps and satellite views provides an arrow and a distance
indicator which always point to the place you need to reach, even if it is moving.

GPS, find me! is much more than a simple GPS application that takes you
from one place to another because it offers:

A compass.

The ability to share your position via SMS, email, Facebook and Twitter.

The ability to transmit live your coordinates so that you are always reachable even when you're on the move.

A system for obtaining the coordinates with great precision through a multiple sampling.

An address book to save the coordinates of the places you find interesting.

Introduction

To get the first fix from any GPS device may take a few seconds to several
minutes. This depends on how the system works and there is no way for the
application to accelerate this process.

I believe we should say a few words to clarify this concept and avoid
misunderstandings on the quality of this application.

The GPS to work needs to know exactly the orbits of all satellites involved
in the calculation of the position and this information is transmitted at regular
intervals from the satellites themselves. If your device has not in memory the
updated data must wait until they are transmitted and the wait can last from a
few seconds up to 12 minutes.

A regular use of the GPS will keep the data up to date and the wait time
will be reduced to a few seconds

Cases where the wait is long:

First use (GPS, not the application).

GPS not used for several days.

You moved a lot since the last time you turned on the GPS.

User manual

On installation the measurement system (meters or yards) is automatically choosen
depending on the country where you are. You can change this setting at any time
via the menu on the main screen.

Each button has a blue icon on the left side that when clicked opens a
pop up with a small help.

The use of this application presupposes that you have some coordinates to
reach. These coordinates can be entered manually, received by SMS or automatically
via the Internet.

Enter a location manually

Clicking on Position/Insert manually opens the screen for
manual entry. Required fields are title (how this position will be displayed in
the address book), and, of course, coordinates. In the 'notes' you can
write anything that will help you remember why you entered this position, you
can also leave it in blank if you want.

You can send your location via SMS by clicking on Position/Share
Position. This will open the screen you see below:

The panel at the top shows the visible satellites, their power, if they have
downloaded the data needed to calculate the position and if they are
contributing to a fix. A satellite is in use when all three indicators
are white. Generally it takes three or four satellites to calculate
the position and the waiting time can vary from a few seconds to a few
minutes as explained here.

If you've enabled the location through the Internet you will almost immediately
get a position even without waiting for the satellites, but the accuracy will be very low.
If you are not satisfied with the accuracy wait until there will be a
sufficient a number of satellites.

When there are enough satellites the coordinates are calculated every
second and shown in the red circle in the center of the screen. On the left side
the diameter of the circle is highlighted to get an idea of how the coordinates
are distributed around the mean (the center).

The bottom pane displays the coordinates and their accuracy.

When you are satisfied with the accuracy press the Send
button to choose the delivery mode; what you see depends on what applications you have
installed (Facebook, Twitter, email, ...) but there will be always the option
to send via SMS.

If you have received a text message with a location you will see it automatically
in the address book. We will see later
how to access it and use the coordinates.

Save current position

Of course you can also save your current location. By clicking on
Location/Save position you will get the same screen
described above, where instead of the button
Send there is another that refers to the save screen.

Position via Internet

If you have an Internet connection you can send at regular intervals
our position so that our friends can find you also if you move.

This option is only available to registered users and can be reached via
Location/Send live position. The registration procedure
is free, is completed in less than 10 seconds and only serves to assign an ID
unique to each user.

yellow stars refer to the items saved and gray ones are SMS which are shown
as long as they are still in the inbox.

If you click on an entry it will be expanded to show further details; will appear
also two clickable icons: the one on the left is used to edit, save (if it is SMS),
or delete the entry, while the right one opens the screen for navigation.

The tab Moving target you see below instead
allows localization of someone who is transmitting its location via the Internet.

Enter the username and the password (if any) of any who you want to locate and
press Find; if the user is transmitting its position
you will be brought to him.

These screens are accessed using the instructions described in the chapter
Find.

These are the three ways that the application offers to allow you to
reach your destination.

We have an arrow indicating which direction we need to go and how much
we are far from the place or the person we want to achieve. This mode
is valuable when we have no references on a map, for example if you are
looking for a person on the beach or at a concert. For better accuracy
of the arrow refer to the section calibration.

The bar with the colored LEDs that lies below the arrow indicates the precision
of our coordinates (left half) and those of the destination (right half).
The more LEDs turned on the less the accuracy. In the picture above is indicated a
good accuracy for both.

In the event that the destination is in a mapped place we have the map and the
satellite view. We are highlighted with a blue circle and our destination by a red flag.

A typical case of use is to use the map to get close to the point we want to
achieve and then use the arrow to reach it.

For the proper functioning of this application it is necessary that the compass
inside the smartphone is calibrated. From experience I know that this sensor is
very sensitive to local changes in the magnetic field and so I recommend you to run
this simple procedure every time you rely on the arrow to reach your destination.

Open the arrow navigation page.

When you are in an open place, at least 5 meters away from cars, computer and
large metal masses, make a 8 shaped motion as shown in this video.

I personally think that the direction indicator is the best method
to reach a point, however, I realize that in some devices
the compass is not very precise, and this may in some rare cases extend
slightly the path. I'm already working on another system that does not need
compass to direct you to your destination and I'll put online very soon.